For a number of different distributed computing environments, systems can now utilize a wide range of different modular and interchangeable components. For example, one computing environment could provide for a number of different personal computers, with each computer being coupled with different interchangeable computing modules. Different modules could include hard disc drives, optical drives, flash memory devices, or a myriad of other storage of processing devices, and could include devices such as displays or monitors. In some computing environments where computers and modules are used in secure environments, such as some military applications, intelligence operations, and research and development facilities, it may be desirable to limit access to use of certain modules to particular locations, people, computers, or other modules. Further, in addition to providing for control over access to different modules it can be desirable to provide a method for tracking which people have accessed different modules in the system. U.S. Pat. No. 5,552,776 (the '776 patent), entitled ENHANCED SECURITY SYSTEM FOR COMPUTING DEVICES, to Wade et al., and assigned to the same assignee as the present application, teaches among other things a system which provides for controlling access or use of different memory modules in computing system, and this patent is incorporated herein by reference. Additional elements and embodiments of systems utilizing different interchangeable memory storage modules are also described in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/754,934, filed Jan. 9, 2004, entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SWITCHING DATA STORAGE DEVICES AND MULTIPLE PROCESSORS, which is assigned to the same assignee as the present application, and which is incorporated herein by reference.
The '776 patent teaches aspect of using different memory tables in different computing to provide for security and access control over different computing devices coupled with a docking base unit.